Close To Home (aka The Summer That Never Was)

by Peter Robinson

  She found a spot she thought would do. It was a gentle dip in the daleside a few yards off the footpath. From there she could lie on her stomach and keep a close eye on the shelter without being seen from below.

  Annie felt the warm, damp grass against her body, smelled its sweetness as she lay flat on her stomach, binoculars in hand. It felt good, and she wanted to take off all her clothes, feel the sun and earth on her bare skin, but she told herself not to be such a bloody fool and get on with the job. She compromised by taking off her jacket. The sun beat down on the back of her head and her shoulders. She had no suntan lotion with her, so she put the jacket over the back of her neck, even though it felt too hot. Better than getting sunstroke.

  When she had got settled, there she lay. Waiting. Watching. Thoughts drifted through her head the way they did when she settled down to meditation, and she tried to practice the same technique of letting them go without dwelling on them. It started as a sort of free association, then went way beyond: sunlight; warmth; skin; pigment; her father; Banks; music; Luke Armitage’s black room; dead singers; secrets; kidnapping; murder.

  Flies buzzed around her, snapping her out of the chain of association. She waved them away. At one point, she felt a beetle or some insect creeping down the front of her bra and almost panicked, but she managed to get it off her before it got too far. A couple of curious rabbits approached, twitched their noses and turned away. Annie wondered if she would end up in Wonderland if she followed one.

  She took long, deep breaths of grass-scented air. Time passed. An hour. Two. Three. Still nobody came to pick up the briefcase. Of course, the shepherd’s shelter was off-limits because of foot-and-mouth, as was all open countryside, but that hadn’t stopped Martin Armitage, and she was certain it wouldn’t stop the kidnapper, either. In fact, it was probably why the place had been chosen: little chance of anyone passing by. Most people in the area were law-abiding when it came to the restrictions, because they knew how much was at stake, and the tourists were staying away, taking their holidays abroad or in the cities instead. Normally, Annie obeyed the signs, too, but this was an emergency, and she knew she hadn’t been anywhere near an infected area in weeks.

  She wished she had something to eat and drink. It was long past lunchtime now, and she was starving. The heat was also making her thirsty. And there was something else, she realized, a more pressing urge: she needed to go to the toilet.

  Well, she thought, looking around and seeing nothing but sheep in every direction, there’s a simple remedy for that. She moved a few yards away from her flattened spot on the ground, checked for nettles and thistles, then took off her tights, squatted and peed. At least a woman could do that during surveillance in the countryside, Annie thought with a smile. It was a bit different if you were sitting cooped up in your car on a city street, as she had found out more than once in the past. Before she had finished, two low-flying jets from a nearby U.S. airbase screamed over, seeming no more than twenty feet or so from her head. She wondered if the pilots had got a good view. She gave them the finger, the way Americans did.

  Back on her stomach, she tried her mobile again on the off chance that it might just have been local interference before, but still no luck. The moor was a dead zone.

  How long should she wait? she wondered. And why hadn’t he come? The money was just lying there. What if he didn’t come before nightfall and the lovers returned, more important things than foot-and-mouth on their minds? Several thousand quid as well as a quick bonk would be an unexpected bonus for them.

  Her stomach rumbling, tongue dry against the roof of her mouth, Annie picked up the binoculars again and trained them on the shelter.

  Michelle drove Banks to a pub she knew near the A1, wondering more than once on the way why she was doing this. But she knew the answer. She was bored with routine, bored first with tracking down the paperwork, and then bored with reading through it. She needed to get out, blow the cobwebs away, and this was the opportunity to do that and work as well.

  She also had to admit that she was intrigued to meet someone who had been a friend of Graham Marshall’s, especially as this Banks, despite a touch of gray in his closely cropped black hair, didn’t look old enough. He was slim, perhaps stood three or four inches taller than her five foot five, had an angular face with lively blue eyes, and a tan. He showed no great clothes sense but was dressed in basic Marks amp; Sparks casuals – light sports jacket, gray chinos, blue denim shirt unbuttoned at the collar – and the look suited him. Some men his age only looked good in a business suit, Michelle thought. Anything else made them the male version of mutton dressed up as lamb. But on some older men casual looked natural. It did on Banks.

  “Is it to be DI Hart, then?” Banks asked.

  Michelle glanced sideways at him. “I suppose you can call me Michelle, if you want.”

  “Michelle it is, then. Nice name.”

  Was he flirting? “Come off it,” Michelle said.

  “No, seriously. I mean it. No need to blush.”

  Angry at herself for letting her embarrassment show, Michelle said, “Just as long as you don’t start singing the old Beatles song.”

  “I never sing to a woman I’ve just met. Besides, I imagine you must have heard it many times.”

  Michelle graced him with a smile. “Too numerous to mention.”

  The pub had parking at the back and a big freshly mown lawn with white tables and chairs where they could sit out in the sun. A couple of families were already there, settled in for the afternoon by the look of it, kids running around and playing on the swings and slide the pub provided in a small playground, but Michelle and Banks managed to find a quiet enough spot at the far end near the trees. Michelle watched the children play as Banks went inside to get the drinks. One of them was about six or seven, head covered in lovely golden curls, laughing unself-consciously as she went higher on the swings. Melissa. Michelle felt as if her heart were breaking up inside her chest as she watched. It was a relief when Banks came back with a pint for himself and a shandy for her, and set two menus down on the table.

  “What’s up?” he asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “Maybe I have,” she said. “Cheers.” They clinked glasses. Banks was diplomatic, she noted, curious about her mood, but sensitive and considerate enough to leave well enough alone and pretend to be studying the menu. Michelle liked that. She wasn’t very hungry, but she ordered a prawn sandwich just to avoid being questioned about her lack of appetite. If truth be told, her stomach still felt sour from last night’s wine. Banks was obviously ravenous, as he ordered a huge Yorkshire pudding filled with sausages and gravy.

  When their orders were in, they sat back in their chairs and relaxed. They were in the shade of a beech tree, where it was still warm, but out of the direct sunlight. Banks drank some beer and lit a cigarette. He looked in good shape, Michelle thought, for someone who smoked, drank and ate huge Yorkshire puddings and sausages. But how long would that last? If he really was Graham Marshall’s contemporary, he’d be around fifty now, and wasn’t that the age that men started worrying about their arteries and blood pressure, not to mention the prostate? Still, who was she to judge? True, she didn’t smoke, but she drank too much and ate far too much junk food.

  “So what else can you tell me about Graham Marshall?” she asked.

  Banks drew on his cigarette and let the smoke out slowly. He seemed to be enjoying it, Michelle thought, or was it a strategy he used to gain the upper hand in interviews? They all had some sort of strategy, even Michelle, though she would have been hard-pushed to define what it was. She thought herself quite direct. Finally, he answered, “We were friends at school, and out of it, too. He lived a few doors down the street, and for the year I knew him there was a small gang of us who were pretty much inseparable.”

  “David Grenfell, Paul Major, Steven Hill and you. I’ve only had time to track down and speak to David and Paul on the phone so far, though neither of them was a
ble to tell me very much. Go on.”

  “I haven’t seen any of them since I left for London when I was eighteen.”

  “You only knew Graham for a year?”

  “Yes. He was a new kid in our class the September before he disappeared, so it wasn’t quite a full year even. His family had moved up from London that July or August, the way quite a lot of people were already doing then. This was before the huge influx; that came later in the sixties and the early seventies, the new town expansion. You probably weren’t around then.”

  “I certainly wasn’t here.”

  “Where, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I grew up in Hawick, border country. Spent most of my early police career with Greater Manchester, and since then I’ve been on the move. I’ve only been here a couple of months. Go on with your story.”

  “That explains the accent.” Banks paused to sip beer and smoke again. “I grew up here, a provincial kid. ‘Where my childhood was unspent.’ Graham seemed, I don’t know, sort of cool, exotic, different. He was from London, and that was where it was all happening. When you grow up in the provinces, you feel everything’s passing you by, happening somewhere else, and London was one of those ‘in’ places back then, like San Francisco.”

  “What do you mean by ‘cool’?”

  Banks scratched the scar beside his right eye. Michelle wondered how he’d got it. “I don’t know. Not much fazed him. He never showed much emotion or reaction, and he seemed sort of worldly-wise beyond his years. Don’t get me wrong, though; Graham had his enthusiasms. He knew a lot about pop music, obscure B-sides and all that. He played guitar quite well. He was crazy about science fiction. And he had a Beatle haircut. My mother wouldn’t let me have one. Short back and sides all the way.”

  “But he was cool?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how to define the quality, really. How do you?”

  “I think I know what you mean. I had a girlfriend like that. She was just like… oh, I don’t know… someone who made you feel awkward, someone you wanted to emulate, perhaps. I’m not sure I can define it any more clearly.”

  “No. Just cool, before it was even cool to be cool.”

  “His mother said something about bullying.”

  “Oh, that was just after he arrived. Mick Slack, the school bully. He had to try it on with everybody. Graham wasn’t much of a fighter, but he didn’t give up, and Slack never went near him again. Neither did anybody else. It was the only time I ever saw him fight.”

  “I know it’s hard to remember that far back,” said Michelle, “but did you notice anything different about him toward the end?”

  “No. He seemed much the same as always.”

  “He went on holiday with you shortly before he disappeared, so his mother told me.”

  “Yes. His parents couldn’t go that year, so they let him come with us. It’s good to have someone your own age to hang about with when you’re away for a couple of weeks. It could get awfully boring with just parents and a younger brother.”

  Michelle smiled. “Younger sister, too. When did you last see Graham?”

  “Just the day before he disappeared. Saturday.”

  “What did you do?”

  Banks gazed away into the trees before answering. “Do? What we usually did on Saturdays. In the morning we went to the Palace, to the matinee. Flash Gordon or Hopalong Cassidy, a Three Stooges short.”

  “And the afternoon?”

  “In town. There was an electrical shop on Bridge Street that used to sell records. Long gone now. Three or four of us would sometimes crowd into one of those booths and smoke ourselves silly listening to the latest singles.”

  “And that night?”

  “Don’t remember. I think I just stayed in watching TV. Saturday nights were good. Juke Box Jury, Doctor Who, Dixon of Dock Green. Then there was The Avengers, but I don’t think it was on that summer. I don’t remember it, anyway.”

  “Anything odd about the day at all? About Graham?”

  “You know, for the life of me I can’t remember anything unusual. I’m thinking perhaps I didn’t know him very well, after all.”

  Michelle was getting the strong impression that Banks did know something, that he was holding back. She didn’t know why, but she was certain that was the case.

  “Number twelve?” A young girl carrying two plates wandered into the garden.

  Banks glanced at the number the bartender had given him. “Over here,” he said.

  She delivered the plates. Michelle gazed at her prawn sandwich, wondering if she’d be able to finish it. Banks tucked into his Yorkshire pudding and sausages for a while, then said, “I used to do Graham’s paper round before him, before the shop changed owners. It used to be Thackeray’s until old man Thackeray got TB and let the business run into the ground. That’s when Bradford bought the shop and built it up again.”

  “But you didn’t go back?”

  “No. I’d got an after-school job at the mushroom farm down past the allotments. Filthy work, but it paid well, at least for back then.”

  “Ever have any trouble on the paper round?”

  “No. I was thinking about that on my way here, among other things.”

  “No strangers ever invited you inside or anything?”

  “There was one bloke who always seemed a bit weird at the time, though he was probably harmless.”

  “Oh?” Michelle took out her notebook, prawn sandwich still untouched on the plate in front of her, now arousing the interest of a passing bluebottle.

  Banks swatted the fly away. “Better eat it soon,” he said.

  “Who was this bloke you were talking about?”

  “I can’t remember the number, but it was near the end of Hazel Crescent, before you crossed Wilmer Road. Thing was, he was about the only one ever awake at that time, and I got the impression he hadn’t even gone to bed. He’d open the door in his pajamas and ask me to come in for a smoke or drink or whatever, but I always said no.”

  “Why?”

  Banks shrugged. “Dunno. Instinct. Something about him. A smell, I don’t know. Sometimes when you’re a kid you’ve got a sort of sixth sense for danger. If you’re lucky, it stays with you. Anyway, I’d already been well trained not to accept sweets from strange men, so I wasn’t going to accept anything else, either.”

  “Harry Chatham,” Michelle said.

  “What?”

  “That’ll be Harry Chatham. Body odor, one of his characteristics.”

  “You have done your homework.”

  “He came under suspicion at the time, but he was eventually ruled out. You were right to stay away. He did have a history of exposing himself to young boys. Never went further than that, though.”

  “They were sure?”

  Michelle nodded. “He was on holiday in Great Yarmouth. Didn’t get back until that Sunday night. Plenty of witnesses. Jet Harris gave him the third degree, I should imagine.”

  Banks smiled. “Jet Harris. Haven’t heard his name in years. You know, when I was a kid growing up around there, it was always, ‘Better keep your nose clean or Jet Harris will get you and lock you up.’ We were terrified of him, though none of us had ever met him.”

  Michelle laughed. “It’s still pretty much the same today,” she said.

  “Surely he must be dead by now?”

  “Eight years ago. But the legend lingers on.” She picked up her sandwich and took a bite. It was good. She realized she was hungry after all and had soon devoured the first half. “Was there anything else?” Michelle asked.

  She noticed Banks hesitate again. He had finished his Yorkshire pudding, and he reached for another cigarette. A temporary postponement. Funny, she’d seen the signs before in criminals she’d interviewed. This man definitely had something on his conscience, and he was debating whether to tell her or not. Michelle sensed that she couldn’t hurry matters by pushing him, so she let him put the cigarette in his mouth and fiddle with his lighter for a few moments. And she
waited.

  Annie wished she hadn’t given up smoking. At least it would have been something to do as she lay on her belly in the wet grass keeping an eye on the distant shepherd’s shelter. She glanced at her watch and realized she had been lying there over four hours and nobody had come for the money.

  Under her clothes, and the jacket protecting the back of her neck, Annie felt bathed in sweat. All she wanted to do was walk under a nice cool shower and luxuriate there for half an hour. But if she left her spot, what would happen? On the other hand, what would happen if she stayed there?

  The kidnapper might turn up, but would Annie go running down the daleside to make an arrest? No, because Luke Armitage certainly wouldn’t be with him. Would she have time to get to her car in Mortsett and follow whoever picked up the money? Possibly, but she would have a much better chance if she were already in the car.

  In the end, Annie decided that she should go back down to Mortsett, still keeping an eye on the shelter, and keep trying until she found someone home with a telephone, then sit in her car and watch from there until relief came from East-vale. She felt her bones ache as she stood up and brushed the loose grass from her blouse.

  It was a plan, and it beat lying around up here melting in the sun.

  Now that it was time to confess, Banks was finding it more difficult than he had imagined. He knew he was stalling, playing for time, when what he should do was just come right out with it, but his mouth felt dry, and the words stuck in his throat. He sipped some beer. It didn’t help much. Sweat tickled the back of his neck and ran down his spine.

  “We were playing down by the river,” he said, “not far from the city center. It wasn’t developed quite as much as it is today, so it was a pretty desolate stretch of water.”

  “Who was playing with you?”

  “Just Paul and Steve.”